I see in a CBC news story that lawyers representing the Senate will soon ask an Ontario court to remove it from a multimillion-dollar lawsuit launched by Senator Mike Duffy, arguing its actions in the expenses scandal are protected by parliamentary privilege.
Interesting case and quite a story. A multi-million dollar lawsuit against Canadians over this does not strike me as proper but as for that group of yahoos in the Senate, I'm not sure how far that parliamentary privilege should extend.
While a multi-million dollar lawsuit does seems somewhat excessive, I do believe that appropriate consequences should be dealt out to them including a requirement that they pay adequate compensation for what they put Mike and Heather Duffy through.
If the Duffy lawsuit succeeds, and the court decides the dollar amount of the award, I believe a garnishment making the Senate a garnishee would respect its parliamentary privilege and be an appropriate solution. The court could direct the Senate to collect instalments from those senators' salaries and pensions and pay those to Mike Duffy until the full amount of the award is paid.
Ralph Ferguson
Pictou
